secondlifefandomcom-20200214-history
Version 0.5.0
=Second Life 0.5.0= Released March 31, 2003 Highlights * New Gestures and Emotes * Smoother Performance on Crowded Simulators * Faster Physics Performance * Auto Logoff After 30 Minutes of Inactivity * 15% Frame Rate Improvement * Land Purchase Price Consistent Across Simulators, Neighbor Discounts Still Apply AVATARS * Lots of new and updated fully animated emotes, available from the "gestures" panel under Edit menu, with more in works. * Avatars can now move forward while in mid-jump. * The avatar changes posture occasionally while standing. * New "pointy ears" slider. Better small/flat butt for butt size slider. * Fixed vertex normals problems on several facial and hand morph sliders. * Long pants now go past ankle even if tight. * Less mesh overlap around knees when sitting with loose pants. * Default shirt and pants no longer show midriff. Default jacket is more open. * Avatar clothing displays correctly even when running in a window where the window is partially off screen. * Attachments scale smoothly. * Body sway while you are standing still or sitting has been temporarily disabled. It will be back in 0.6. COMMUNICATION * IM behaves more like MSN Messenger, Yahoo IM, etc. In particular, if you close the IM tab the "session" is not ended. Your friend can type another message and the tab will pop back open. By default, each IM is between two people only. If you want a conference IM with three or more people, you must put the calling cards for those people in a folder in your inventory and right-click on that folder to start the conference. * Chat from objects is now a different color than chat from other avatars. * If you receive an IM, the task bar button will flash. * TAB focuses on last chatter even while typing. * Chat from objects you own can still be heard if you are in Busy mode. UI/OBJECTS * Items that were embedded in note cards and then copied to the inventory are now properly saved. You can now teleport to landmarks embedded in notecards. * Right clicking on a texture preview (or other previews) no longer brings up a pie menu. * Script question dialogs (and other dialogs) now automatically moves you out of mouselook. * You can no longer copy no-copy items by making an outfit. * Dragging and dropping items onto attachments now behaves identically to dragging and dropping them onto the avatar. * Large map of world (and other resizable windows) is now constrained to be entirely visible. * On the dynamic map, the avatar tracker's arrow has the right color. * The debugging hotkey that turned on GUI outlines has been removed. * "Texture Repeats per Face" values are now always positive and "flip" checkboxes have been added. "U" and "V" labels have been replaced by "horizontal" and "vertical." * Text labels created with the script call llSetText work with attachments now. * Recompile All Scripts In Selection has been removed for this release. It will return in a later release. LAND * Land modification now enforces more stringent slope limitations. The highest slope you can create is about 45 degrees. Thus, if you want to make a mountain, you will need to buy a lot of surrounding land. * Land purchase price is now constant across a single simulator, regardless of how much land has already been purchased. Previously the cost was variable based upon the overall occupancy. The neighbor discounts still apply. GRAPHICS/PERFORMANCE * Server performance has been approximately doubled since the last release. This should result in smoother movement, especially in busy regions. * Frame rate improvements - you should see an approximately 15% increase in frame rates under steady state situations (chatting), and more variable improvement in frame rate during other usage situations. * Less performance rundown over time - You should no longer see spikes in frame rate every 16 frames after you've been in-world for a long time. Also, overall frame rate shouldn't run down as much. * Less frame rate stutter when new sounds are first played. * Tinted objects have the correct color when in direct sunlight and when nearby lights are very bright. * You should no longer see invisible avatars (can see name, but not person). * Also, you should not see avatars with incorrect animation states as often. * Added gamma control to the viewer. Decreasing the gamma will make the world brighter. There are some known issues with gamma not being properly restored in the case of a crash of the viewer. PHYSICS * Default physics frame rate is now 45 Hz. This makes the physics system faster. The only noticeable effect is that dropping a physical box on top of a larger non-physical box will take about one second longer to stop jiggling around. * Physics system runs fasters resulting from tuning to “interpenetration checking.” In the old design, if you tried to move a box so it overlapped a physical object, the move would fail and an error would be printed. Now, the move will succeed, but if you bump into the physical object it will "pop out.” * Less jerky movement immediately after the Second Life servers are restarted or many new images are uploaded. * Faster relative movement of linked objects (i.e. using llSetPos() on a linked primitive). ASSORTED SYSTEM & SECURITY * Automatic logoff. If you are inactive for 30 minutes, you will get a warning dialog. If you don’t respond within one minute, you will be logged off. * Improved client performance under bad networking conditions. If your machine is unable to ping the server for more than 10 seconds, the connection is automatically paused and is automatically resumed when the network becomes available. * Our login process now uses a more secure method, the same SSL security standard used to send credit-card information over the Internet. This will lead to a slightly longer delay at the “Contacting login server…” part of login. * Updated online help under “Help” menu. * Installer improvements: Installer warns if current version is already installed. Uninstaller removes icons properly. Uninstaller checks if Second Life is running. FIXED BUGS/EXPLOITS (Remember: Exploits and bugs should be reported to Linden Lab) * You can no longer make money by attaching an object you can’t afford, then detaching it. * You can no longer make money by dragging a jointed object across a region boundary. KNOWN BUGS * Radeon 8500 cards: Second Life will sometimes lock the machine (nothing being displayed, can’t move the cursor), especially when customizing your avatar after running the application for 5-10 minutes. We believe this is an interaction between Second Life and the current ATI Radeon Catalyst drivers. We are working with ATI to resolve the problem. * Radeon 9000 cards: The current beta Catalyst 3.3 drivers cause Second Life to crash on quit. The workaround is to use the Catalyst 3.2 drivers. We are also working with ATI on this problem. * Radeon 9700 cards: Parts of the user interface will flicker different colors (red or yellow). Also, the “fog” in the distance will spontaneously turn on and off. These problems are fixed in the Catalyst 3.3 driver, which will be available in a few weeks from http://www.ati.com/ * GeForce FX cards: The shoulder joints and hip joints will appear disconnected. This will be fixed in the next major release of Second Life. (nVidia no longer supports GL_EXT_vertex_weighting or GL_ARB_vertex_blend, which we were using to join the limbs to the torso. The next version of Second Life will use vertex shaders to accomplish this effect.) Category:Release Notes